EU project LocalRES: how blackouts can be avoided

In this age of smart grids, there are small, networked units, though it must be said that they have become more susceptible to breakdowns. In the EU project LocalRES, a team from the University of Passau are testing insights from the DFG basic research project Schwarzstart.

LocalRES project will deploy innovative local energy systems driven by renewable energy communities for a socially fair energy transformation that puts renewable energy into the hands of communities and people. LocalRES will deliver new digital tools that will boost the expected structural change in the current energy system at different levels: 1) generation, increasing the number of small power producers of renewable energy; 2) market, creating local energy markets that enable prosumers to trade energy volumes of their choosing within local communities; 3) distribution, establishing a multidirectional energy flow and promoting REC driven energy services, and 4) consumers, empowering consumers to be active and participating in the energy system and the design of their own Renewable Energy Communities (REC). The main objective of LocalRES is to demonstrate at TRL8 innovative local energy systems in a sector coupling approach, which will be able to interconnect and optimise the joint operation of different energy vectors (electricity, heating, mobility, etc.) by maximising the RES contribution and enhancing the energy system flexibility and supply security. The focus is on the renewable energy communities as main actors for leading the structural change in the current energy system towards the decarbonisation of the local energy systems based on an integrated multidirectional flow approach and prosumers, allowing to maximize the replicability and upscale the potential of the decentralized solutions developed in the project. The LocalRES solutions promote a secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy supply for everyone.

Principal Investigator(s) at the University	Prof. Dr. Hermann de Meer (Lehrstuhl für Informatik mit Schwerpunkt Rechnernetze und Rechnerkommunikation)
Project period	01.05.2021 - 30.04.2026
Source of funding	Europäische Union (EU) > EU - 8. Forschungsrahmenprogramm (Horizon 2020)
Projektnummer	957819